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I Never
by bailunrui
The room behind the glass panels was dark. The diagnostic team had finished treating a patient with Legionnaire's disease. He had entered the emergency room two days prior complaining of fever, chills, and cough. The patient had originally been diagnosed with pneumonia until his kidneys unexpectedly shut down and began to bleed internally. The septicemia would have killed him had they not determined it to be Legionella. It was primarily the lab work by Cameron that showed the proof positive evidence.
And there she was. Sitting by herself in the dark, faintly illuminated by the sterile hallway lighting. Whether she was awake or not, he couldn't tell since he only saw her from the back, smooth brown hair messily held off of the nape of her neck with a clip. He quietly let himself inside House's office.
"Cameron?" he whispered into the silence.
He received no response. Rounding the chair, he saw her sitting in the lounge chair with her knees tucked under her body but making no other movement. Her usual perkiness subdued.
"Cameron, are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just thinking." She took a deep breath, still not looking at him. "I sometimes come here to think late at night because I feel like... I feel like I can soak up some of House's ability to find the right diagnosis. The right answer." She paused and took a quick glance at him. "God that sounds so stupid."
"No!" Chase objected. He pulled the ottoman over closer to where she was and sat down facing her. "I understand completely. When I was a teenager, I wasn't very good with girls. Hard to believe, right? I'd go up to a girl and then completely lose the ability to talk or think. But I still went to every weekend house party in he neighborhood. I would go there and be up against the wall..." Cameron raised her eyebrow. Chase clarified, "I mean, a wallflower. I was completely out of my element. I'd just watch the jocks and popular guys do whatever like it was the easiest thing in the world and win over the hottest girls in school. Just being there made me feel different. Like if I stayed around them long enough, I'd be that cool."
"And did you? Win over any girls?"
"Nah. I never got up the nerve - no length of time on that wall could ever get me to go after the girls. I didn't feel like I could compete. Enough of that, though. Now, ask me about how I debauched the nuns in seminary," he grinned. Cameron gave a silent laugh. "There we go. A laugh. That's what I was looking for."
"So what are you still doing here? Mr. Greensum got transferred to a private room a couple of hours ago."
"I had a stack of charts to catch up on and lab tests to check."
"Ah," she said, taking in his rumpled shirt and loose tie.
"What do you say to a nightcap?" he asked.
Cameron stopped fiddling with her watch. "Right now?"
"Right now. You up for it?"
"Sure. What the hell," Cameron agreed.
Chase slipped into the conference room and quickly found the stash of alcohol reserved for nights where the edges needed to be smoothed. He grabbed two shot glasses, a salt shaker, and an unopened bottle of Tequila before going back to House's office. Cameron had turned on a small table light which illuminated the room in a soft rose hue.
"Care to make this interesting?" he asked, placing the liquor on the glass table next to her chair.
"How so, Doctor?"
"Let's play a little game called 'I Never'."
"What's 'I Never'?"
Chase stared at her with wide-eyed disbelief. "You mean to tell me that you went through four years of medical school, a year of internship, and four years of specialty training without ever playing 'I Never'?"
"That's right. So, how is this game played?" She sat up a little straighter in the chair looking as if she wanted to take notes on what he was about to explain.
"It's simple, really. One of us would say something like 'I never jumped out of an airplane'. But if you have, you have to take a drink. Got it?"
"Yeah, I think I got it."
Chase poured them each a finger of tequila to begin with.
"Since I'm a gentleman, ladies first."
Cameron took a moment to think about it. "I've never skipped a class in college."
"Dammit." Chase downed the entire shot and enjoyed the immediate sting of the liquor against his throat. "Way too easy. My turn. I've never gotten a tattoo."
Cameron shook some salt into her palm, licked it, and took a sip from her shot glass. Chase protested, "No way!"
"Yes way."
"You can't just confirm that kind of information and not show the evidence," he pointed out, grinning from ear to ear.
"I'm not that drunk yet, Bob," Cameron smiled. Chase gave a put-upon sigh before signaling that it was her turn to pose another question. "I've never dated my best friend's ex." Chase shook his head. "I figured," Cameron amended. "You're too sweet to do that to a friend."
"I'm sweet? I hope you mean in a rakish Johnny Depp Don Juan DeMarco way rather than a Keebler cookie elf way. I've never been arrested."
Cameron finished off her shot. "My dad called the sheriff on me when I was seventeen after I took the car without asking him. He told me it was to teach me a lesson. I never took the car again without asking - that's for sure," she explained as he poured her glass full again. "Okay. I never streaked in public."
Chase grimaced at the memory and took a drink. "I've never taken my clothes off for money." He waited for her response, but Cameron just shook her head. And then, he took a swig of tequila. Cameron raised her eyebrow. "Quid pro quo, Ali. I'll tell you mine if you show me yours."
"Fine," she agreed. She looked behind the chair to make sure that the hallway as clear. Cameron, slightly impaired from the alcohol, clumsily stood up and undid her belt, sliding the leather out of the loops of her khaki pants before placing it on the chair behind her. Chase involuntarily swallowed as she unzipped her pants low enough so that he could make out the top of her black silk underwear. She turned, standing between his legs, her right side facing him and lowered the side of her pants and underwear slightly until her hip bone was exposed. On the pale skin was a caduceus - two serpents wrapped around a winged staff.
Chase looked up at her, "When did you get it?"
"The day I was accepted to my number one med school pick."
He brought his right hand close to the surface of her skin, feeling her heat but not touching. "May I?" he asked, fascinated by the dark ink staining her skin.
"Sure."
He brushed his index finger over the entire design, raising goosebumps on Cameron's skin. Her breathing sounded raspier, more labored. He finished his inspection of the tattoo by tracing the serpents from tail to head up the staff.
"I don't think my story's gonna live up to that," he said, reluctantly removing his hand from her hip. Cameron zipped up her pants and sat back in her chair.
"I still want to hear it," she prodded.
"When I was an undergrad, I decided to rush for Sigma Alpha Epsilon. One night, as part of rush, we went out to a strip club. While we were there, the brothers thought it'd be funny to make the recruits put on a show. Either we did a strip tease or we'd never get accepted. So I did the strip tease."
"What did you dance to?"
"What did I dance to? Um, I honestly don't remember. I was sort of trying to not die of embarrassment at the time."
"Did you go full monty?" Cameron prodded, grinning.
"That'll cost you a drink, missy," Chase evaded. Cameron picked up the tequila bottle and poured herself another shot. Then she did something wholly unexpected.
She scooted to the edge of the chair and began to unbutton Chase's white cotton shirt. He was unsure of what to say, tongue-tied. She undid about three buttons before stopping to get the salt shaker off of the glass table beside her. She turned back to him, her eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light. Her head was moving towards him and he thought that she was going to kiss him, but instead her head moved towards the side of his. She slowly licked the skin over the hollow of his clavicle and shoulder.
Chase's breath hitched in his chest. She sprinkled some of the salt over the now damp area before licking it again and then slamming back the shot of tequila. His eyes nearly rolled up into his brain at how erotic all of this was. He swallowed, attempting to saturate his dry mouth.
Cameron leaned into him, "Was it full monty?" Her eyes danced in mischievous delight.
Chase's life quickly passed before his eyes. To be more specific, his love life. Staring at the pretty girl in homeroom, sending his grade school crush an extra special valentine, the endless hours against the wall while his classmates groped and made out, losing his virginity to a girl whose name he couldn't recall. And here was this flirty woman, leaning into his personal space, licking salt from his body.
He closed the space between their bodies and captured her lips with his. The first taste of Cameron was of residual salt and tequila. Her pliant lips opened and allowed him further exploration. Underneath the alcohol was a taste uniquely Cameron. Two parts sweet and one part cinnamon. She pulled him up into the chair, desperate to get closer. He teased and nibbled her bottom lip until her gasps and moans were audible.
"Don't stop," she pleaded.
Chase abandoned her lips for the soft skin on her neck. Mimicking her earlier actions, he licked her there, lightly blew on the damp skin, and then began sucking and kissing in earnest. While he attended her, she began unbuttoning the rest of his shirt and removing it, scraping her fingernails over his shoulders, running her hands down his bare chest.
Cameron only separated from his attentions long enough to remove her shirt and then she was back to his mouth. Her hands entangled in his hair, making sure he wouldn't leave her.
As their lips meshed, Cameron could hear some noise with the periphery of her senses. Overwhelmed with Chase, it took her some time before she realized that there were people walking down the hall. She detached her lips from his and brought her finger up to his mouth to signal "quiet".
Chase stopped his ministrations and listened. A doctor and two nurses were walking down the hallway and gossiping quite loudly over some recent administrative change. Chase huddled closer to Cameron, hoping that the high back of the chair would sufficiently hide their compromising position.
The interlopers passed the office without a hint of break in their discussion. As soon as Chase was sure they had gone, he couldn't help but begin to laugh. It started low, hardly audible until he felt Cameron convulse under him - in a fit of her own giggles. Then, the laugh expanded in his chest and he laughed aloud until tears threatened to wet his cheeks.
"I guess that this wasn't the most private place to choose, huh," Cameron managed to say between gasps for breath.
"Definitely not. Can you imagine... never mind, I don't even want to think about it."
Cameron looked up into his eyes. "Would you like to continue this somewhere we can be alone?"
"God yes."
They gathered up their shirts strewn across the floor and got into them.
"You never answered my question..." Cameron accused.
"I'm sorry - you'll have to repeat it. I've seemed to have lost most of the blood flow to my brain at the moment."
"Was it full monty?"
"It wasn't then, no. But tonight, it will definitely be full monty tonight. Let's ditch this popsicle stick stand," Chase said.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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